


Prologue - A Flickering Candle at the Edge of the World

by Blaze_Beraht



Series: The Blue Spirit's Bargain [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU, Azula doesn't get death she's 9, Azulon didn't tell Ozai to kill Zuko what kind of grandfather does that, Eventual Gay Zuko (Avatar), Gen, No Beta, Spirit Shenanigans, Ursa has skills like you wouldn't believe Zuko had to have got it from SOMEBODY, Ursa hears Ozai wants to kills Zuko and nopes them the fuck out of there, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, expect tense shifting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21935128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blaze_Beraht/pseuds/Blaze_Beraht
Summary: Ozai plans to kill Zuko so that his choice of heir gets the throne.The spirits have other plans for the one he calls "lucky to have lived."
Series: The Blue Spirit's Bargain [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1579573
Comments: 69
Kudos: 371
Collections: The Best of Zuko





	1. The Night Everything Went Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> So this story is something I hammered out over the course of some hours because sleep is not happening tonight I guess. I apologize if google docs, the closest thing I have to a beta reader failed miserably at catching things. (and oh wow, 11 pages; that's more than I was expecting for the first half of my prologue to get us where Zuko needs to be for things to start.)
> 
> This is gonna be my first fic ever, so constructive critique and comments please. I need all the help I can get.
> 
> This work owes a great deal to Embers (Inkgirl, Vathara) for getting me back into Avatar more directly.  
> And it owes even more to Muffinlance, their works, and the works of those inspired by them (clockworkpunk, whatthedubs, and many others who added fic ideas to their tumblr)
> 
> I have a basic idea of where things go in the prologue, I have no clue where it's going once Zuko hits 13 and starts what would have been his sailing the world period. It'll probably end up including one or multiple of muffinlance's prompts.  
> Buckle up, we're all in for a wild ride, because I have no license and therefore no clue on how to get this bus moving.

Ursa shoved open the doors to her bedchamber. She hadn’t slept with her husband in… it had to be five years now. Five years since she discovered none of her messages ever left the palace.

They sat at her dressing table (where better to hide deadly potions than with potions of a different kind?) and opened one of the cupboards removing the somewhat tattered book of herbs her mother gave her. She opened the book, flipping the cover up and quickly turning pages to find the recipe she needed.

_Equinox flower: usually dried and used as a mothball, its red flowers can be made into a pulp and then after distilling three times through an alembic, make a beautiful pink rouge for the cheeks. Care must be taken to keep it away from the mouth and eyes._

What the recipe did not say, was that the colorless distilled liquid was an imperceptible fast-acting poison. Her hands shook. But her husband had given his word that her son would survive if she gave him a vial. Her hands shook as she brought out her equipment. She pulled a key from her sleeve pocket and opened up another compartment on her desk. She told her husband it was because she kept the poisonous plants there. And that was true, but for the last five years it also held the small unsent letters she wrote and burned, hoping that something of their meaning might catch the winds back to her home island.

A breeze blew through the room then, rustling the bright red petals of the equinox flowers and slightly unrolling her most recent scroll.

_I don’t know him anymore. Maybe I never knew him at all. He does not mention his threat to treat Zuko as if he were your son, but sometimes I wish I could claim it in truth._

Ursa turns and stands, walking to her chamber doors to close them. The fear clawing at her throat has her mind duller than she thought. But there’s no time to clear it. No time to think. If she hesitates, her son’s life is forfeit.

Then she halts in the middle of the room. The unfurled end of the scroll jostling something loose in her mind. _Would my son be safe even if the Firelord was dead? Could he be safe when the Firelord to be has all but disowned him already?_

She purses her lips, biting the lower one with her teeth, the rose petal lipstick too pleasant a taste for contemplating regicide. Her husband had all but banished her already. She had no way to ensure he would follow the terms of this night. None but his honor. And what honor did a man willing to kill his own father have?

Her husband knew how to push her. And coming to him already troubled left her at a disadvantage. But Azula had taunted Zuko with a truth neither child should have known. But didn’t her husband already tell her son truths that ripped through his loving heart? Azula had bragged to her about how their father had said Zuko “was lucky to be born.” Could she trust a man like that to be bound by the blood they shared?

She walked hesitantly back to her dressing table and delicately sat, smoothing the wrinkles in her kimono as she forced her mind to THINK. Her dragon side was riding her high, _PROTECT! THREAT! KILL!_ It screamed. But kill who? Protect how? She needed her human mind for that, and her thoughts were flying like turtleducks in the shadow of a messenger hawk.

And that thought stopped her flat, as she looked at the quiet garden outside her rooms. Her son was the prey, eyed by something she couldn’t reach or ward against directly. How did she get him out of the path of those claws before they snatched him away?

She’d have no answers from her mirror.

————

Azula was trying to sleep. Tomorrow everything would be different, just like father said. And she wanted tomorrow to be there now. But even when she squeezed her eyes shut, she couldn’t make her heart stop racing.

Then her door opened and she sat straight up, “Father?” She asked into the darkness. But it was her mother standing there. Her eyes widened. “Mother?”

“Azula, I’m sorry.” She said striding across the room to kneel by the side of the bed. Azula feels her mother hesitate. But then she embraces her, and she hugs back.

“Dad says things are going to be different tomorrow. Isn’t that a good thing?” She asks, feeling the shaking in her mother’s shoulders.

“No;” her mother says, “not now. Not here. Not when it means your brother would be dead, and I will not be here either.”

“But… Why do you have to leave?” Azula asked, “Dead means Zuko will be gone a day and then he’ll be back. Just like the turtle ducklings at the pond. I counted them. And there’s always twelve. If there’s ever ten or eleven, and one or two are dead, the next day, they’re back and there’s twelve again.”

Her mother gasps against her, holds her tighter, and then quietly says, “I’m sorry honey, I wish I had known you thought that. It’s not how death works. Your brother, Lu Ten, and myself, we won’t come back. The turtle ducks did not either. I guess you did not notice the patterns on their shells. Zuko did the first time one went missing. The next day there were twelve turtleducks again yes, but he saw it was different from the one that went missing the day before.”

Her mother shuddered, and Azula frowned. _Zuzu had noticed something she didn’t? But Zuzu never did things better than her. Father told her so._ But it looked like she was wrong. Mother never lied to her, not the way the courtiers and everyone else did. Not the way that she learned how to. She was more like Zuko that way. And this meant Zuko was leaving and never coming back, and Mother was going with him.

Azula had never been told she could not have something before, and she didn’t like it. The way her father had not mentioned she’d never see her brother again. What was she supposed to do without him around? How would father know when to smile at her if Zuzu wasn’t there to learn something half as quickly as she did? She did not like the idea of Zuzu going away. “Where are you going? I’ll come with you and Zuzu!” She declared.

Her mother gasped; “no, honey, no. There’s no coming back here if you leave. They say that where we’re going is under the sea, so things taste like salt, and fire doesn’t light. You cannot breathe air if you live there, and I want you to still breathe and walk above the waves. The dead are forbidden to do much in La’s kingdom. You’d grow bored too quickly, a bright mind like you.”

Azula felt her mother’s tears on her hair and cheeks. She felt her mother kiss her forehead. “I love you. I love you so much. I wish… I wish I could do better. I’m sorry. Go to bed. Your father is right. Things will be different tomorrow.”

Azula gripped her mother’s outer robe tighter, but her hands slipped on the silk, and her mother laid her head back on the pillow. And placed her warm hand on her forehead to brush the hair from her face. Her eyes drooped, and as she fluttered on the edge of dreaming, she wondered. _If momma and Zuzu are going to die, does that mean in two days I’ll have a new momma and Zuzu? I don’t think I’d like that. Zuzu didn’t want a new Lu Ten either, when I told him about it…_

And with that thought she fell asleep.

———-

Ursa wiped the tears from her face, making her way to Zuko’s room. He slept peacefully, and her breath hitched, thinking of what she was about to do.

Ursa pulled the blankets down, and gathered her son up into her arms still asleep. He was eleven, nearly twelve, but his growth spurt hadn’t hit yet. She carried him easily. A lifetime of moving props and building sets left her with stronger muscles than it appeared. She walked down the halls of the family wing. Her husband waited on the other end of the hall, down on the westernmost facing wall of the palance. She headed east, toward her father-in-law.

——-

“Momma?” Zuko asked, sleep still blurring his eyes. He tried to feel for the sun, but it was dark, and not just the dark before the sun was up. The sun was far away. Agni’s eye was on the spirit world; Tui’s was directly above them. _Where were they going in the middle of the night?_

He looked at the passageway, and saw the increase of gold over red as they walked. They were walking to Grandfather. “Did grandfather want to speak with me?” He asked.

“No, Zuko,” she answered him, “but I need to speak with him.”

Zuko nodded, and didn’t ask to be put down. It had been months since the last time his momma had held him like this, and she mentioned that soon he’d grow too big to fit in her arms. He did want to grow bigger, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to not be carried anymore like this.

His momma pulled open the door to his grandfather’s bedroom and walked in, pulling it shut behind her.

“Your majesty, Firelord Azulon, I come to beg a boon from you,” his momma said, putting him down. Zuko turned to look at the bed, and his grandfather was in it, still up with the reading light on, a pair of knitting needles in his hands for a small red, green, and yellow scarf. The three spools of yarn on his bed seemed to shine in the candlelight, like little stars he had plucked from the sky to weave together. Zuko turned and saw that his mother had knelt and bowed low, letting her forehead touch the floor. And he knelt to mirror her

“Speak not so formally to me, Ursa. I am an old man, and you are my daughter. Rise.”

“I am not a dutiful daughter to you. I beg your forgiveness.”

“What? What has happened?”

“My husband told me that you had asked him to kill our firstborn as recompense for his insult to my honored brother-in-law after you asked us to leave the room.”

Zuko gasped. Azula always lied. He had told himself before falling asleep. But she told him the truth about da… their father.

What Zuko did not hear was Azulon’s own gasp, the intake of breath nearly gutting the candle before he steadily exhaled sparks. Zuko and Ursa looked up at the same moment to watch the sparks lightly set onto the bed. The silks and yarns were treated to be fireproof, and it looked even more as if Azulon sat in the sky. Then he took another breath, and put the sparks out, mellowing the bedside candle as well which had burned high for a moment.

“Ursa, I am wounded by my son’s thoughts of what actions I might take. On the bed stand is a document drafted just after the audience ended. In it, when… if you or Ozai sign it, I fear I must say, Zuko would no longer be yours alone, but Iroh’s son and successor to his family line.”

Zuko’s momma gasped and he did as well. _Take the place of Lu Ten? His cousin who had taught him to sail? The one he learned swordplay with? How could he fill the shoes of his cousin who might as well have been his big brother? He was slow at learning, not like Azula. How could he measure up to the Dragon of the West’s legacy?_

Zuko saw his mother bow again, and he pressed his head to the floor as well.

“Forgive me my betrayal. My husband said that he would carry out your order, and that my son would be dead if you survived the night. I was convinced to make a poison he would give you on the morrow before aught knew your desires.”

Zuko gasped and lifted his head to look at his momma whose hair had fallen forward to cover her face, then at his grandfather. His eyes were wide in shock, and his mouth open, as if to draw a dragon’s roar of flame. Zuko stood and ran in front of his momma to try to shield her if his grandfather tried to burn her. “Please! She just was afraid and wanted to keep me safe!”

“Zuko no!” His momma said and tried to pull him to the side, “you must respect the judgment of your firelord.”

Zuko sniffled, his eyes filled with tears, but if his momma’s voice was calm, like when she gave him lessons at the turtleduck pond, he knew things couldn’t be too bad. He turned to look at his grandfather, and grinned at him when he saw he was grinning at them.

“The dragon’s blood runs thick in both your veins,” his grandfather said. “Perhaps a bit too thickly now that I think of it. And that is my fault when I consulted the fire sages on who my sons should wed. You have done not but that which your dragon compels you. And you tamed your beast so that you were not swept up in machinations you had no knowledge of.”

He put down his knitting, gathering up the yarn to put it into its basket. “But this will not do. Neither of you should be here in the morning; and I can rouse none I trust completely without my son hearing of it. I can only entrust my grandson with you. And ask that you sign and give your brother in law a child to help him through his mourning.”

“Zuko, would you like being your Uncle Iroh’s son?” His momma asks, “You won’t stop being my son if you say yes. You won’t stop being Azula’s older brother either.”

Zuko takes a moment to think. “Yes, momma. I want Uncle Iroh to be happy again. I wanna help him mourn like grandfather asks. But I don’t know if I can be like Lu Ten…”

His grandfather chuckles, “Zuko, you only need to be yourself. That is all I or anyone else can ask of you. Doing otherwise would be wrong of me.” And Zuko pauses to think about that. His father always said that he should be as good as Azula, until he said he shouldn’t be around at all. But if the firelord said that he just had to be himself… maybe he could do a good job at that. (Once he figured out what being himself meant. Ugh. That sounded like one of the koans Uncle and Lu liked to tell him.)

Zuko nods his head, “I think I understand.” And his grandfather smiles and turns to his momma. “Ursa, please sign and take the scroll with you. I will let Iroh know in the morning, and he will know to come for you, wherever you are.”

“Yes, my lord,” she says, standing to walk through the table with the scroll. She opens up the short document, short enough to be fully unfurled on the table without falling off, and grinds some ink for her brush. She signs her name and letting her hand glow with fire, dries the new ink. Zuko has always loved his mother’s fire, the way it has so many colors in it. Grandfather startles at the colors, and momma grins at him. The way she does at him when she finishes performing _The Dragon Lovers_ on days he was ill. She loved how she did the voices. It was the grin she used when she played the Blue Spirit. He liked when she did it much more than when they went to see it on Ember Island.

Then his momma opened a red ink pad and pressed her thumb against it before pressing it to the scroll. With that her signature was complete, and he was now Uncle Iroh’s son as well as his momma’s. (He didn’t want to think of his father then.)

Grandfather nodded as momma quickly wrapped the scroll up and put it in her robe. “Then we shall be off your majesty. _May you reign another thousand and five hundred years more_.”

Zuko bowed to his grandfather and stumbled over the words a little, since his momma used a really old way of saying it, and he was still learning classical high court.

His momma beckoned him towards a wall and pressed it. Zuko gasped as the wall popped open revealing an entire hall that led into the darkness. His momma lit her hand to guide them, and they entered the darkness. Zuko watched his momma look through both sides of the passageway and did the same, remembering to look up as well, in case anyone learned to move the way he had with Piandao. But he saw no one either and they both stepped into the passage together, closing the door behind them.

Zuko saw there was a lock to the door, but his momma used her flame to heat the bolt and melt it into place. “Why’d you do that momma?” Zuko whispered.

“So that if your grandfather needs to leave his room quickly, no one can lock him in. He’ll notice if someone tries to lock the passageway now. There are other hidden places even your father doesn’t know about that your grandfather can lock and hide in instead.”

Zuko and his momma walked, and walked, and walked. His feet started to feel a little tired, but he didn’t want to worry his mom. He was eleven, and that meant he was big. And he had to be as good as Lu Ten; and maybe if he worked hard like master Piandao has told him to, he could be even better. (He tried not to think of his father’s words about being lucky to be alive, or Azula’s way of always being better at firebending than him. Grandfather said he only had to be himself, and he was already halfway to being the best at shuang dao that master Piandao had seen.) He smiled and kept close to his momma, holding tightly to his grandfather’s words.

———-

Ursa changed herself and Zuko in the servant’s laundry, dumping her clothing into a pile of other kimono she wore. One extra robe in the laundry wouldn’t be remarked on. Neither would Zuko’s extra set of clothes and boots. She took her son’s crown band from its ponytail, and placed it gently onto a pillow for polishing. Last she took out the pins in her hair, letting her hair fall free.

The queen - though she decided she could no longer think of herself as such - found a pair of servant’s robes for herself, and a set of clothing for Zuko that wouldn’t be out of place for one of the lesser scribes’ children. A child shadowing his mother to work was not uncommon at the palace. Especially not on the late shifts. The children could get used to being around opulence before their first full day of work as adults. It was easier for everyone when no one was gaping at the things they had to clean each day.

Ursa finished dressing them both and knelt. Her long outer robe flowed over her pants, and she adjusted Zuko’s collar and sleeve to make them all lay flat. She rolled her hair into a loose bun, spearing it in place with the plain lacquered hair stick that hid behind the jem laden outer pins. It was the way a mourning widow would put it.

“Zuko, we have to play a game now.” She said as she worked. “We’re going to be acting as servants. So that means we can’t have the same names. I’m going to be your momma Noriko, it’s written with the character for thoughts, like in the word ‘meaning.’ You’ll be Li, written with the character for dark, like in the word for ‘daybreak.’ I know it’s a big character, but I know you’ll write them both well.”

Zuko nodded at his momma, he could be Li. “What’s our last name?” He asked. As she gathered up his hair and slowly braided it as many mothers did, hoping looking like a court scholar would one day make their children so.

“It will be Zi, which is an old name, and written with the character for ‘child.’ It’s one my family claimed a long time ago.”

Zuko nodded, “ok, momma Nori.”

His momma hugged him. “You are my bright little Li.”

Together they walked briskly through the dark servant’s road from the back of the palace, they bowed to the soldiers on duty, his momma apologizing for not bringing them tea when she saw their table was empty. They waved her through with smiles at him. “I’m sure you had your hands full with this one.” Zuko puffed out his cheeks. He was good at following his momma and not causing trouble. And the guards chuckled and ruffled his hair making him puff his cheeks out more.

“Oh Li,” his momma said, “perhaps that will be true in time, but only when you do as you have said.”

Zuko blushed, realizing he was sleepier than he thought if he mumbled his thoughts out loud. He got a pat on the back from the guards. “Stay out of trouble, the both of you. There’s a cold wind from the north tonight.”

“We will do our best,” his momma said with a smile.

————

They wound their way down from the palace to the outskirts of the city. His feet were tired but his eyes were wide open as he got to see the city on foot. His father had never let him walk here by himself. And Lu Ten couldn’t allow him to wander here, the way he did when they were in Shu Jing studying.

It was his first time seeing the capitol without the palace walls blocking his view, and he realized it would probably be his last in quite a while.

They made their way to a small inn next to the city gate, and his momma paid two copper pieces so that they could lie down on the cots in the lobby for those wanting to leave at first light. It was already halfway through the hour of the ox, so they’d only need to wait for two of the tiger for sunrise and the rabbit’s hours. His momma told him to get some sleep if he could, and he nodded. Snuggled up next to his momma, he slept better than he had in months.

—————-

Zuko woke up sluggishly as the town cocktowers rang out the start of the rabbit’s hour. He blinked and wondered why the sun didn’t feel right, and then realized the city was covered in a weird haze. It felt a little chilly, but the weak sunlight warmed him pretty well, despite it. And it gave him more of a reason to snuggle his momma.

She woke up pretty quickly as he snuggled her, complimenting him on his warmth despite how cool the day started. Zuko grinned. “It’s your time of day, my little Li, the gray dawn has stayed to guard your slumber. Now it’s time to be off. We shouldn’t keep my brother waiting.”

Zuko nods, “yes momma.”

His momma chats with some of the others waking up, and he even waves at the girl who’s on the cot with her family across from him. She waves back, looking sleepy. Zuko turns to watch his mother as she pays another bronze coin to get them some miso soup. The steam rising from it into his face smells great, and it’s full of tofu and seaweed, just how he likes it.

His momma chats with some of the merchants as they eat, and she finds a caravan heading southeast to Katentokoro where the southwest road ends at the sea. She smiles and pays them a whole gold coin to join them on their journey. And Zuko’s eyes widened. He’s never seen such a big coin in person before. At least, not in an exchange. The court scribes count a great many of them each month.

The merchant’s eyes widen and they smile at her, but momma smiles sadly back at them. “I saved up half a year’s wages for that. I can’t offer any more even if you were to throw food in along with the place to sleep.”

“Well, in that case, how bout you make us our meals and we’ll let you and the boy have those free for your work?” One of the younger merchants -Ichirou- said.

His momma smiles and nods. “A fair trade. I worked with a woman who once lived in the palace. I picked up some tricks from her.”

“Oh? Upper city huh? What’s got you going out to the country?”

“My brother needs us. His son is ill, and he’s not able to care for his son and our parents both. His wife passed away, so I’ll be acting in her stead.”

“Aiya, my condolences. The weather reports from the messengers have all spoken of fair weather. So we should at least move quickly today.”

“I’m glad indeed of that.”

“Well, with us introduced, let’s get to the caravan. Li, would you mind taking this bag?” The oldest of the merchants -Saburo- asked. Zuko nodded, “yes sir!” And went over to the big bag he pointed at. It was heavier than it looked, but he gripped it around the middle and with a growl, managed to lift it up.

“A strong lad you have there!” The merchant said, and Zuko blushed at the compliment, unused to them. But without Azula there, he wondered if he might not be strong anyway. Just maybe not as strong as her.

They walked in companionable silence as they went outside to the stables to load their carts, and the quick orders of the load up gave Zuko ample time to think.

Even though he was going to be next in line for the throne after Uncle, he was sure his sister would do amazing things at the palace. Maybe she’d be like the Poet General from the song of the three clans. She was already a genius according to everyone. And that did make him feel better in a way.

He already had a part to play now, like the emperor in the Jade dragon mysteries: he’d be undercover so that his enemies wouldn’t notice him, even as he learned of all their misdeeds far from the capitol where they thought he couldn’t find them. Or like the tiger-bear prince who after meeting a spirit chose to wander the land righting wrongs until he was called home.

He didn’t think of all the stories and histories about princes in hiding. The stories were usually kinda boring and gross in the beginning with the prince not knowing who his real parents were and falling in love with a girl who died at the end of the first act. He especially did not think of the histories where clans that sent young lords into hiding usually met tragic ends betrayed by retainers or discovered by assassins.

———-

They had just left the gates when a commotion went up at the palace, bells rang through the city and runners were sent from the palace down through the streets. The caravan watched the people running as they climbed the caldera’s side up to the southwest road, their caravans moved much slower than the messengers that would reach them eventually.

It was about an hour later when they heard the news:  
“Death! Death in the Palace! The Firelord, the Lady Ursa, and the young Prince Zuko all dead!”

The caravan as one gasped. His momma broke out into a cold sweat, and Zuko held her close.

“What an inauspicious day.” Murmured Saburo from the front of the cart.

“We’ll light candles for them at the first stop,” Ichiro offered, seeing the tears in momma’s eyes.

“Thank you,” momma said. “It’s not like I knew her directly, but my friend’s stories… they always made her and the prince seem like goodly sort. I… I can’t imagine how the Firelord himself…”

“We’ll probably be stopped,” Saburo said, “three deaths in the palace is too great a disaster to be coincidence.”

“Curse whatever earth kingdom assassins managed to get into our kingdom,” Ichirou said. “If only the dragon’s siege could have ended the war.”

“Has there been any news of the dragon?” momma asked.

“No,” Saburo said, “some rumors that he left the front to go on a journey. May he find peace through it.”

Zuko stayed quiet, listening to the adults talk around him.

It was a quarter of the way through the snake’s hour when the guards leaving the city caught up to their slow moving caravan. The soldiers with them had their masks on, surprising Zuko. _But then,_ he thought, _they were expecting to find dangerous people eventually._

The guards questioned each of the merchants in turn as the soldiers watched quietly from their komodo rhinos. The guards apologized to momma and smiled at him as they left. They didn’t question him or his momma. No one thought one woman or even one man could have overturned the succession of the fire nation alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited May 19 2020; I didn't realize I needed to use HTML so I'll be going over and doing that. hopefully I don't miss anything


	2. On the Old Sea Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Road trip the first, part 1
> 
> there's a lot of small scenes I was expecting to get me to Hira'a eventually, but then plot happened in a plume of ash. Sorry it took so long, that scene is still evading me, so I decided to hop over the tricky stuff since this is something I'll be posting for fun.
> 
> Edit:
> 
> Thank you thank you thank you very much to muffinlance. I apologize for forgetting the thank you for this chap and my use of their Wani crew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the ATLA maps need something to be desired when it comes to figuring out lengths. I’ve decided to use a few different ones to try and figure stuff out, but the north and south poles seem far too squished together especially if the equator goes through Caldera and Si Wong. The plant life would be all off. (If anyone has some headcanon posts or other theories, please send them my way, because I’m failing miserably at ground based travel times.) for now, as the title suggests, I’ll be using the Tokai road as the main guess for length of trip.  
> Hira’a is also not on any maps of the fire nation I can find, so I improvised and could be completely off.
> 
> a little works cited article out of the many tabs I opened on my phone for this story:  
> https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2014/04/22/305582368/introducing-a-divorce-rate-for-birds-and-guess-which-bird-never-ever-divorces

Back at the Palace

Azula woke up to the sound of wailing. The servants weren’t there, which was unusual. She was also awake later than she expected. She guessed her restless night accounted for that. It was strange no one thought to wake her, her tutors weren’t…

She forgot today was gold day. Firebending lessons were the first today, but she had gotten father to sack the teacher. He told her he’d send him to the colonies. Was that like death too? She would have a teacher soon, but more than the day needed for turtleducks. But now she knew that the ducks weren't the same. They were different ones sent to replace the ones that died. 

She knew that if grandfather died, he’d be replaced as fast as possible, even faster than the turtleducks. Turtleducks weren’t needed to run a country and war. A firelord was. And that was why they had lines of succession, so they knew exactly to to fetch if something happened. She guessed that firebending instructors didn’t have a line of succession, so it could be some time before he was replaced. And then the dark thoughts bubbled out like remembering a bad dream. She felt water in her eyes, knowing that father would find a replacement for mother and Zuzu. But neither replacement would be the same. And she did not like that. But the wailing meant she couldn’t change it. It was too late.

She dressed herself quickly and opened the door to the hall. No one was there. The screaming was all in the direction of grandfather’s room. Of course, she walked towards it. She wanted to see what was happening.

The door was pulled mostly shut, but it was ajar. Azula gripped the side of the door to pull it open. It was not her first time seeing blood. She had been to the kitchens with mother, and watched them butcher and pluck a picken. She helped, and even thanked the picken for its meat the way mother and the cook showed her.

This was different. The light gleamed on something stuck in grandfather. The smell was weird, like something tries to burn but couldn’t. Grandfather’s knitting was getting damp, the three bright colors all turning dark. Azula didn’t like that. She didn’t hurl the way some others did. She smelt the sick in the corners and saw it on some of the wailing women’s skirts. But… surely grandfather could be stitched up? Like the way momma had done with her dolls.

Then she realized he wasn’t breathing. That he hadn’t been for a while. There was a pillow thrown in the corner of the room. No one had moved it there or kicked it away. It looked thrown. Azula was a genius. And for once, she wished she wasn’t. The knife was familiar: she took it from Zuko a few days before they heard about Lu Ten. She had been jealous that uncle gave him a knife, and she got useless dress up stuff.

She had given the knife to father to give back to Zuko at mother’s insistence. But instead it was there, buried in grandfather’s chest. He wouldn’t have felt it though. He would have been busy worrying about the pillow.

Later that day, it finally clicked for Azula on why grandfather, her mother, and Zuzu could not come back: Father set his body aflame with his own bending before ordering the sages to crown him. He didn’t wait to collect the ashes.

—————-

Zuko woke up late. It had been a few days since they left the capitol and there were now three towns between them and his father. The news trickled out slowly. His father crowned himself firelord the day after he, momma, and grandfather had been declared dead.

It was strange hearing the adults talk. They all disapproved and were vocal about it. “But isn’t it dishonorable to speak that way of the firelord?” He asked.

Saburo looked him over, and he just barely managed not to flinch away from his piercing hawk like gaze. “If one has done what is proper, and so cultivates righteousness in themselves, then yes, those below them would be disloyal for talking as such.”

It was a strange way of answering. “What has the firelord done that is improper?” Zuko asked.

His momma and Saburo looked shocked. Saburo’s gaze flicked to his momma then back to him.“Did no one explain to you the rites?” He asked softly.

“Which rites? The tutor told me about the harvest festival, and the summer memorial festival…”

“When a ruling firelord dies,” his momma began, “it has been tradition to allow a year of mourning so that all in the country may learn of the news and pay their respects. Even in wartime. The firelord to be takes the title of Shogun - high general - and administers the country as such until the mourning is past.”

“And the fire sages have not yet announced the era name,” Saburo added, “to do business or any matters of import before knowing the name of the era is as to leave a child nameless. The spirits do not like nameless things, and think humans that would forget to name something would not mind its absence. If they find something unnamed, they’ll try to take it for themselves to give it a name and make it theirs.”

“But don’t we ask the spirits to support the firelord?” Zuko asked.

“Only after the firelord has made his name known,” momma said, “and so can be seen to put his subjects first. To not do so is to invite Agni to play a trick. He may be our patron, but he is also a trickster. And we must never forget that he likes a good joke most of all.”

Zuko nods at that. His momma and his tutors both told him about some of Agni’s “jokes.” He’s not sure giving a loyal soldier a plague counts as a joke, even if the enemy general did bring it back to his kingdom with him.

“So what does that mean for you all?” Zuko asked worriedly. “Can you still sell things at the next town without knowing the name?”

Saburo closes his eyes and ponders for a moment. “If the new lord wants to feign propriety, at his coronation he will order the release of messenger hawks to each daimyo and governor. And they will see to it that word of the new lord and the name of his reign will be known to all before the marketday begins. If he chooses to break entirely with propriety, we will have no choice but to do so as well and continue using the era of the previous lord till we are told to do otherwise.”

Zuko shuddered at the thought. He knew his father wasn’t good; not after he lied about what grandfather wanted, but he still couldn’t imagine turning his family loyalty so thoroughly upon its head as to act as if his father wasn’t firelord now. 

Saburo smiled at him. And Zuko tilted his head. “How do you know so much about rites and what’s proper?” He asked.

Saburo smiled. “I once sat the Imperial exams, but that year, they had no need of me as a scholar, and so I took up the family business as a merchant instead.”

Zuko looked awed. Though he wouldn’t have needed to pass the imperial exams that were required for scholars and all the people that wanted to work in the government, but he still wanted to be able to. He would have been a general or a minister as part of the royal family, and it felt dishonorable to not be able to show he would have earned the position.

“Could you teach me about the exams?” He asked.

His momma and Saburo both smiled. “I don’t see why not,” the man said.

His momma turned to Saburo and asked, “Is there anything I can do as repayment?”

Saburo shook his head. “Teaching is a gift to the teacher as well as the student. I have wealth and food enough to support myself.” He turned to Zuko. “The only gift I require is your attention when we speak.”

“Yes sir!” Zuko said brightly, grinning at the thought of new lessons.

————

They were a day’s travel from their last stop. A small market town called Chiryu. Zuko was glad to have left. The old ladies he got stuck sitting with just complained about how all the young men left for the big cities. But he nodded and made sympathetic sounds as his momma told him, and he left with a bunch of fire flakes and sour plum candy, so he couldn’t really complain.

He was tired and sucking on one of the round plum candies as he snuggled under the blankets his momma left for him while she went to sit at the campfire with the other adults.

It was the evening of the fifth day of Zenzai. The fire sages used a character from his name, which Saburo said was rare. But its meaning of “spread over all” had the merchants looking worried.

“We just lost our greatest general,” one of the junior merchants said, “and he wants to keep with expansionist assaults? Will there be tin left for us to mend pots, Agni knows there’s already no iron for anything but more warships.”

“Don’t say that,” Ichirou said, looking at the tree branches as if there might be spies hiding in them. Zuko knew there weren’t any. “At least we still get some of the coal out of the mines at Meioku.”

“It’s little enough after the warships get their cut.”

Meioku was their next stop. It was the fourth biggest city in the fire nation, he remembered from his lessons, but he had not been there before, and that could have changed. His father received petitions all the time from small villages to integrate into the large industrial cities. Zuko wasn’t told the exact details by his tutors, but he assumed it was because they kept growing and needing more people for the factories and construction projects.

It wasn’t like they needed farmers on the islands as much as they used to. The junior merchant was right about the navy taking a lot of the coal. But much of that went to guarding their supply ships from the colonies. Everyone knew about the earth kingdom privateers and raiders that would try to steal their crops. As they traveled across the sea from pohai to the tail islands.

It was starting to get late, and as much as Zuko wanted to stay up listening, his drooping eyelids told him he couldn’t. He fell asleep all by himself, and would have been proud he didn’t need his momma next to him to fall asleep now that he had a choice about it.

————-

Zuko rubbed his bruised elbow. The bumpy carts made it easy to stay awake during the day, but were much harder to lie down and sleep in or next to. He hadn’t slept on the ground much, and the bruises he got from it stung during the day, and he only ended up getting more at night. Momma said he moved a lot while he slept.

His body was starting to get used to it, he thought. He had managed to get some sleep. He stood up to look at the bay, covered in mist. The sun shone brightly on them, but it looked like the capitol was shrouded in fog, the caldrea a cauldron of mist that seemed to leak out into the harbor city below. That seemed to make the rumors worse. Zuko turned to look the other way, at the still far off glow of the Gates of Azulon that guarded the inland sea.

“Hey, up with the sun are you? I guess you are a little lord huh?” Ichirou said.

Zuko froze and turned wide eyed at the merchant.

“Oh! Um… I guess that’s considered offensive up in the caldera. I’m sorry.” Ichirou said and Zuko started. Adults never apologized to him. “It was just a joke... You know what a joke is right?”

Zuko puffed his cheeks out, “of course I know what a joke is!” Zuko stomped his foot. “Here’s one momma told me: There’s a rich merchant in the harbor town named Ping. And he has this plate that he polishes every day…”

Ichirou couldn’t help giggle at Zuko’s “joke.” The lad grinned wider at him and bulldozed along his tale, telling the pieces entirely out of order.

“And so the merchant told his friend the hairdresser about this time the great sage went to the temple and asked about everything.” Zuko continued and Ichirou, gasped and stopped giggling enough to ask, “isn’t it supposed to be about the fire that happened in the great sage’s stable?”

“No! That happens later,” Zuko says, “when the hairdresser talks to her friend who has multiple jobs. Y’see, her friend has this no good husband…”

And off Zuko went again, telling what Ichirou knee was the actual start of the story, and he giggled all the while as he talked about a woman of the capitol who worked three jobs to support his drinking habit.

Zuko managed to make a maybe ten minute joke last over half an hour, but the rambling story brought smiles to his face and that of his companions, his mother included.

Eventually Zuko got to the ending and they all chorused with him, “and so the husband said, of course I love you more darling, because without you, there is no sake!” And they all burst out laughing.

Ichirou smiled as he saw how happy Li was; the poor boy probably didn’t get to be the center of attention, the way he talked about his little sister. It seemed some time apart would do him some good. The few things his mother mentioned about her love of the theater, perhaps his path might lie on the stage. He certainly seemed to have the actor’s intensive need to react to an audience, taking strength and joy from the laughter he made.

————

Meioku was big. It felt bigger than the caldera, even with two giant mountains and a forest surrounding it.

Zuko gaped at everything and his momma giggled at him. He should have been annoyed but there was too much to see to let himself get distracted.

The bag of plum candies tied to his belt was much lighter than the day before, but half the caravan was sucking on the tart treats, and his momma said it was a very nice thing for him to have done.

They weren’t far from their next stop either. Though there were some towns along the road to the old capitol at Fushimi, uncle Saburo said they didn’t have permits to sell in any of them, so they’d head straight to Fushimi to resupply for the next leg of their trip.

They stopped at the central square, and Saburo went to go get rooms for them at one of the inns. Zuko was happy they’d get beds tonight. Baths too. He’d missed feeling clean.

There were a bunch of children playing in the market square and his momma told him to go join them after he helped the junior merchants set up their stands. It was a full bell into the dragon’s hour and he was feeling a little tired, so he padded over to them with a shy smile he couldn’t quite get off his face.

One of the older girls marched up to him. Zuko had to tilt his head up to look her in the face. She looked him over for a moment and said, “You ever played hana ichi monme?”

Zuko shook his head.

“You able to talk?”

“Um… Yes?”

She chuckled. “That sounded more like a question than anything kid,” then patted his head. Zuko wasn’t sure what to do. He reminded him a little of Azula. But head pats weren’t something his sister did.

“Yes, I can talk,” Zuko said quietly.

She giggled at him, making Zuko start. “My name’s Hanako. Just stick with me for now and you’ll do fine.”

She extended her hand and Zuko tentatively took it. She gripped his hand firmly, but didn’t tug him all over the place the way Azula and his tutors did. He was able to make the pace, and Hanako followed his lead even as she guided them both.

“By the way, what’s your name?” Hanako asked.

“It’s Li.” Zuko said proudly. He liked it better than Zuko. Momma always smiled a bit more when she said his new name.

“Who’s that you got there Hana-chan?” An older voice asked.

“Gramps, this is Li.” The girl said pulling her to show him to a seated old man with a small girl on his lap and two other little kids sitting on either side of him. He had a short cut beard that was nothing like his uncle’s but still managed to remind him of uncle iroh when he was allowed to not be the general.

“My name is Li, honorable one,” he said quietly. Hanako’s eyebrows rose.

“You’re court?” She asked. Zuko took it back. Hanako’s smile was scarier than Azula’s.

“Yes? Uuuh. Yes.”

“Think you can teach me some of that? I’m gonna be joining the military after my birthday, and my mom says some refinement’ll get me an officer rank eventually.”

“Ok,” Zuko giggled, “you’re teaching me a game, so I can teach you that in return. I’m not sure how well I’ll do. My sister was always better at it.”

Zuko’s eyes widened. It didn’t hurt to think of the capitol, and his sister in that moment. Something must have shown on his face, as the old man said, “you’ve lost someone recently.”

Zuko nodded. “My sister and grandfather.”

The old man nodded, sighing slowly. “It is good you’re making friends. Even if you wander farther, friends are ties that last.”

Zuko nodded again, trying to remember all his etiquette lessons, and parroted what he thought was the correct response, “even the touching of sleeves with a supposed stranger is a knot in the cords of fate.”

The old man laughed, “ah, how you remind me of my days studying to be a scholar. A little wisdom to one who follows the path I walked: not everyone is looking for a trained answer. Sometimes it is better to give from your heart, even when it startles.”

“My tutors got mad at me when I did that,” Zuko confessed.

“Then those tutors weren’t worth the coin they were paid.”

Zuko’s eyes opened wide at that statement. But then he relaxed again, thinking about which taught him about his heart, and which didn’t. Mon-Sensei always told him to think with his heart as much as his mind. And even if Azula thought he wasn’t good enough, Hanako’s grandfather said he was teaching right.

Zuko nodded at the old man. Mon-sensei told him that to not follow his heart was to turn his back on Agni. The heart was where the breath stored in the lungs was pulled into the body and spread out to all its parts, thus the heart was where agni’s intent was best known. Since that’s where your purified breath was held.

Zuko tried breathing properly for the first time in days. Tried to feel the spark of everyone around him. And he turned to look up at the old man in confusion.

“What’s wrong with your fire?” He asked concerned. Zuko had felt flames as hot as his in his grandfather. But it was like a candle at the end of a long night. It was still strong and even, but he could also feel it sinking away.

“Flames like ours aren’t meant to burn alone,” the old man said, a small grin wrinkling his eyebrows as he looked Zuko in the eyes. “It’s good you can feel for the spark in others. It has kept me alive, and a great number of my comrades well.”

Zuko nodded. “Uncle told me he could find his men even on a moonless and misty night by closing his eyes and looking for their fires.”

“Wait. It’s not literal?” Hanako asked. And her grandfather lightly rapped her forehead. “Ow! What was that for?”

“Not all brigades are exclusively benders. But we all, from the smallest child to the firelord himself, have an inner flame.”

“Wait. So I should be able to sense non-benders?”

“Yeah,” Zuko said. “It’s tricky though. You have to bank your own inner fire to one side so you can feel for the fires of those around you.”

“Bank?” The old man asked.

Zuko nodded, “like when the cooks move the fire for the night so that they can put the breakfast pies in. So you pull your inner fire back to hear the other fires around you.”

Hanako tilted her head. “That doesn’t sound like what you were trying to teach me.”

“Granddaughter, that is because what your friend here does is much more exact, and a lot harder to notice.” The old man took a deep breath, filling his lungs, and then breathed out. Zuko gasped, feeling the man’s fire touch his.

“How… you can?”

The old man tsked. “You should have been taught to touch your fire with others before learning the refined route. Though you are young. It is considered impolite to feel for another’s fire in the capitol. Perhaps they only taught you that first as it is not considered an imposition unlike this method.

“Can I learn that?” Zuko asked. Then he remembered he promised Hanako to play, and turned to her, “it’s fine Li, it sounds like a more interesting lesson anyway.”

Then she turned to her grandfather. “But what was that thing about your fire feeling weird?”

“Sit with us a little and you might feel it yourself.” Her grandfather answered.

————

By the end of the lesson, Zuko sort of got it. You could reach a lot farther, but he almost distracted a courier by touching his fire while he was running by.

“That’s some reach you’ve got there boyo!” He called out, and Zuko blushed at the compliment, a little embarrassed as well.

“How are you so good at this?” Hanako asked him and he shrugged.

“It took me weeks to learn the other way. Maybe it’s easier when you know it already?”

The old man chuckled, “if only it were like that. Learning to bank your inner flame is like sitting on a warm rock and letting the sun’s rays come to warm you. This is like reaching out to touch and grow another’s fire.”

Zuko gasped. “Is that what happened? Is someone trying to bank your fire by reaching at it?”

The old man looked sad, but he also shook his head. “What do you know of raven-albatrosses?”

Zuko tilted his head and thought. “They’re the symbol of the Toya clan, and one of the spirit guardians of Hira’a. The toya clan uses them because of their loyalty, and it’s said that their loyalty and tricks are the reason why Agni liked them so much that he let them be guardians despite being over the seas for years instead of watching the island directly.”

“And why are they a symbol of loyalty Li?” Hanako’s grandfather asked.

“Because they mate for life, and if their mate dies… oh. I’m sorry.” Zuko clambered over to the old man to give him a hug. He felt so much better now that momma could all the time and decided he would give them to other people to make them feel better too.

Hanako and the other kids joined him, and the old man sighed, still sad, but a little happy too.

“Yes; my husband was in the army, back when Pohai stronghold was still new. He was ambushed alone by an earth kingdom patrol.”

Zuko gasped. “What happened to the rest of his unit?”

Hanako growled. “Grandpapi didn’t wanna spend time with a lazy general and told him so. Which is why he got sent off alone so grandpa couldn’t have him either. We burn an effigy of the guy on Shīmī for forcing him and grandpa apart.”

Zuko’s face dropped, devastated at the idea of a general being that spiteful. And Hanako’s grandfather patted his head. “His actions were brought to light, and the young firelord Azulon brought him to justice and gave my family the most meaningful reparations he could.”

Hanako noded, “grandfather’s considered a minister in mourning for his loss. So we get a stipend, and grandfather gets to look after us instead of work. My family decided to join the military in spite of what happened to grandpapi. Momma’s a sergeant, and says if I can get a commission, I’ll start where she’s at now, so I really want to try.”

“And what happened to last week, when you said you wanted to be an engineer?” Her grandfather teased.

“Well, I wanna do that too, after the lesson we had, but I donno, you have to be small to be a good engineer, and I wanna be dad’s height.”

“Don’t let your mother hear you say that.”

“Why not?” Zuko asked.

Zuko could see where Hanako got her grin now. But that made him like the old man more. He really was a lot like Uncle.

“She’s the same height as my brother,” Hanako said. “He’s twelve.”

Zuko blinked at her. “And how old are you?”

Zuko got a smack in the forehead for that. “Fifteen, but it’s ok. My dad got his growth spurt late!”

Hanako’s grandfather chuckled as she dragged him away to play hana ichi monme.

—————-

“We want Li!” The kids on the opposing team called, and even if it was for a game, Zuko’s heart fluttered at hearing other people call for him instead of his sister.

“We want Hanako!” He called with the rest of his team.

He walked up and Hanako walked up between the two lines of kids to see who’d be pulled into the other team. He put a fist in his palm and raised it to start the challenge. “Jan, Ken,”

A boom rocked the square, black coal dust shot up from the side of the town, flying up, up, up till it dimmed the sunlight.

The kids all looked worried. Was it an earthquake? Zuko wondered.

Then voices rung out. “Mine collapse! Mine collapse! Get to the mines!”

Hanako’s grandfather stood. “Li, would you come with me? Hanako, Ken, Chihiro, you as well. You all managed to find fires. We’ll need that ability today.”

———

Zuko lay awake in bed, snuggling close to his momma after helping with the funeral preparations. He had been told the basics by his tutors, but Uncle Saburo taught him everything he really needed to know so he could help.

His mom hugged him after he and uncle Sa took off the officiant robes they were given for the ceremonies. He smiled so wide when she told him how proud she was for helping.

But now that it was night, and only Tui was left to give vigil over the grave fires, he had time to think.

After Azula got Mon-sensei sent to the colonies, she joked about how he’d probably end up married to an earth bender who could do his job better than him in Yu Dao. Zuko didn’t see anything funny about that. Father always told him having a strong bender for a wife was something to strive for. If it wasn’t for her tone of voice, Zuko might have thought she was wishing him well.

But tonight, those words made him think about how much a strong earthbender would have made a difference. How many more screaming voices under the rubble he could have reached if he hadn’t just been clawing at the dirt. He shivered, remembering what it felt like to feel a person’s fire go out.

This was the fourth most prosperous city in all the fire nation. He was sure his tutors weren’t lying about that. His mind still echoed with the screams from the mines. If this was what one of the most prosperous of his nation’s cities were like, he wasn’t sure he wanted to see more of it.

But he had to. That was a prince’s job. Even when they were no longer part of the succession. Uncle Saburo taught him that first. The duties princes and lords had to the nation. The duties his father had to all those who called the nation home now that he ruled. And in some small part of his heart he tried not to hear, he knew his father was not going to care for the realm as he should.

Zuko gripped the blankets hard to give his hands something to do. He needed to do something. He had an obligation to his people. He wasn’t going to let more disasters like this occur. Or at the very least, he’d be there like he was today. Ready and able to help.

————-

In his room for the night, Saburo sneezed twice. If one believed the superstition about it, someone was speaking well of him. It was nice to hold onto a thought of good wishes after the disaster today. It was better than the alternative of coal dust clinging to his clothes.

He rubbed his nose then picked up his brush again. Zuko was doing well with his lessons, and soon would need a better teacher than he could be. Especially if he insisted in helping again. Pathos could only get him so far.

He was too young. Part of his mind protested. But he was there from the beginning, crying and shouting at the top of his lungs despite the cloths protecting his face from the dust laden air. He had found almost twenty people by himself. And still he cried when they unburied more. It was a good thing minister Fuji was there to help him through that part. He wasn’t sure he could have gotten a kid though the “you can’t save everyone” talk. Some dragon pearl jasmine would probably work as a thank you gift.

The old merchant's hands cramped from the cold, protesting their long use after already filling the manifests and balancing their account books. He hissed and placed the brush back down for a moment to shake out his hand.

He sighed and picked up the brush again. His letters couldn’t wait if he were to leave time to get replies. Pai sho games were best had with an afternoon tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I should probably have just held onto this a few more days to write out the mine collapse scene in full.  
> But I was feeling bored, and I just didn't want to bother after how slow the rest of the chapter was taking.  
> The fact that what was supposed to be the entire trip from Caldera to Hira'a and is now less than half that may be part of the issue.
> 
> Hope you don't mind me committing creative writing sins. Thank you all again for the kudos. I feel quite blessed to have people responding already.


	3. Pai Sho Gambits - Part 1 - Knotweed Strangles the Jasmine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iroh in canon went on a spirit journey for a while after leaving Ba Sing Se. Here's my version of what he's found near the start of it that takes him away for so long.
> 
> The bad thing about his travel habits is that, "I'm sorry, it seems the messenger hawks just couldn't find you," becomes just this side of possible, and he'll be a bit out of the loop by the time he returns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone had a good christmas and new year. I'm back with a smaller update of a longer segment I'm calling "Pai Sho Gambits" I conceived it as one chapter with lots of smaller segments, but unless I make it a separate fic, which I really do not want to do, It's gonna be a series of shorter chapters with different subheadings.
> 
> I believe Muffinlance is where I got both the fire scent thing (salvage) and the masks I used for the spirits (this will NOT be chaos Zuko, but it felt right for what I needed here.)

Iroh wandered the foggy swamp, swatting mosquito-ticks and territorial dragon-butterflies out of his way. He was here to find peace. Had the spirits mislead him? Had his dreams showing him conquering Ba Sing Se been nothing but spiteful illusions given by uncaring gods?

He had lost his son, and nothing was the same. Then he heard a rustle in the trees. It was a boy. He couldn’t have been older than little Zuko. His clothes were earth kingdom, but the hook blades weren’t in wide use outside of the tail islands. Could he have been a colonial shipwrecked and left alone?

Iroh kept his hands near his sides, hoping not to startle the boy. “Excuse me,” he called.

“Stay back fire nation sum!” the boy called, and Iroh drew back a step, seeing the rage that contorted the boy’s - who no longer reminded him of his nephew - face. There was hate there. Not the anger from hearing of far off “atrocities” made by the walled city’s propaganda bureau, but the true and cold hate of one who had seen things no one should. His heart went out to the child. The spirits were said to love children. They would be stirred by his rage.

He heard a wet bubbling sound from his side and turned to look. Slinking from the darkness, the mud slurping from their rotting boots, were a contingent of rough rhinos. Iroh gasped seeing Colonel Mongke among the phantasms. The man had been alive during and after the recent siege. Could this be a premonition?

The colonel looked through him and he turned back around, discovering the boy was younger now. It was a vision of the past. If his Liu Ten was anything to go by, the boy was eight, just becoming gawky as his body rushed toward its first growth spurt. His blades were gone, and fear was in his face as four more riders appeared from the mud to surround him. The rhinos beckoned for Iroh to join them, and for a moment the general was shocked into stunned silence. These were the men he worked with? These were the people he had trusted with sensitive messages to provincial towns?

His fears were confirmed when one of the riders gurgled out, “A message from the general.” Mud and ichor ran down the man’s armor as he spoke, as if his lungs were full of fluid instead of air, as if he could breathe the water of the swamp. Iroh cringed and shook his head. “You were supposed to hand them a scroll, colonel. A scroll that agreed to give the town fire nation citizenship if they supported us with crops.”

His gut dropped out from under him at the thought of the reports Mongke had given him of successful missions. The way he asked when the first supply of crops should be distributed to their men, and the puzzled expression on the man’s face. It is no wonder the spirits had turned their backs on him. He had not done his job as general; he had failed and this was the result. A child who should have been a citizen dead by his own men’s hands. All because he did not think to more closely watch their movements. Too blinded by the city in front of him.

He rushed forward, gripping the young boy and blowing a stream of fire in a half circle to stave the phantasms off. Perhaps it was too late to make amends, but he wouldn’t stand idly while a child was in peril.

Four years too late! A voice rang out in his head. A quick succession of visions followed. The child stealing his blades from a soldier he had brained with a rock. Him gathering other children too him. (Could Mongke have been responsible for all that? No. There were other generals he followed over Iroh.) A town built in trees. A flood. His own subjects -adults and children alike- swept away in a deluge of water and broken trees, panicked souls drowning and feeding dark spirits that waited just below the surface of the world. This is the legacy they wanted for him.

As if he was also in the flood, Iroh struggled against the deluge, his mind clawing for a surface he did not know how to reach.

Then a hand extended towards him and he reached out in return. He felt himself pulled out of the visions, and then he broke the surface of a pond. In front of him stood. Lu Ten? No, his face was slightly different, still somewhat like his, but… It was Zuko. Ursa’s boy who stood in front of him, the same age as Lu Ten. He wore the crown. What could happen to his father between now and then? Zuko was eleven now, and if he were Lu Ten’s twenty-one…

He was shaken for a moment. He knew that with Lu Ten’s death, and his own hesitance to remarry, his brother’s line would most likely be asked to rule, but to see confirmation of it was startling. He took in his nephew’s face, and tried to see what might be in his life: soft smile lines, and some scars, arrow and sword wounds that gave his face a distinguished look. A battlefield general, who lead his men from the front of the charge rather than the back. For a moment, it was like Zuko’s face was the sun, blinding and bright, and Iroh turned away.

“Don’t worry about me, uncle,” Zuko said, his voice deep and sure, but also kind. He took out a mask from his robes, tying on the blue fanged face of the Blue Spirit, masking the blazing light on his left side. “There are others who need you more urgently.”

Zuko extended his hand, and Iroh took it, wondering where the young man was taking him that required him to hide his face. As they walk, more children peak out from behind the trees whispering as they pass. Iroh sees the young man he had seen with his twin blades, and he steps out to walk beside them, soon followed by six others. He notices one, a girl in the group wears clothing with a mix of fire nation reds and earth kingdom beiges and greens.

They continue walking, the water under their feet as firm as the stone path that leads to caldera’s palace. Iroh pauses for a moment as they reach a clearing, a great tree rises from the muddy water and seems to touch the sky. He stares up at it, and it seems to even hold the sun in its tall branches.

“Zuzu, who’s this?” An alto voice asks, sounding clearly across the wide pond. Iroh looks towards the base of the tree and spies a figure wearing a gold dragon mask. Her hair is tied up in the same regal manner as Zuko’s, but with the subtle twist of knots and pins used by actors playing royal roles to keep propriety.

“You know who he is Lala.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us know Uncle yet,” a second person stated as they approached. They were the smallest of the group, wearing a badgermole mask with no slits for eyes. Yet they seemed to know his every movement.

“Yes, our bandit is correct, I’m not sure I’ll ever formally meet him,” the last figure in this council said. Their mask was a sheet of iron with two heavy pieces of glass bolted into place. Iroh puzzled over the design, having seen nothing like it save the official masks of the firebending corps. He knew those were used to keep the sometimes blinding bursts of light that accompanied fire from harming the eyes, but a mask of that weight and thickness would be meant for fires much brighter and hotter than any he could think of made by conventional bending. Curiosity nearly got the better of him before the group spoke as a whole chorusing, “You shall now!”

Iroh was worried. Were these the spirits of fate? He saw no strings or weavings among them, but perhaps that was as metaphorical as his teachers had said the spirits were.

“You have come to us for guidance, and we the spirits of the elements have responded,” They again spoke in chorus. “Know that it is not we who gave you visions of conquest. But also know that we found no reason to stop them. Know that you still have duties to uphold; your debts are not forgotten by the burning of the papers. Know also that you are still recognized as heir to the throne, no matter what else is said. So we the spirits of the elements have spoken. Listen and remember. Heed our words.”

Then the water was water again, and he was falling, down, down, and further through the too clear water, watching the tree’s roots tangle in the mud of the swamp, tying together all the trees into a great net that caught him, before sliding him back out of the forest along the river.

\-------------

Iroh woke in his bed, his body and bedding wet as if he had been swimming, but the rest of the room in his boat was completely dry. He sprung from his bed and opened a blank scroll, hastily using the water from his still wet hair to wet the inkstone. He dried his hands to not blacken them with the ink stick and ground it swiftly. He dipped his brush and in the hasty strokes he used for battlefield communications, began to write down all the events of his dream, starting with the spirits’ words and working backwards.

The face of a child, the same age as his nephew was now, was burned into his mind. The rhinos had been in the wrong, but as their general, all their sins fell to him to address. His time away from the capital would need to be extended. He had children to find. His words may have burnt before they could reach their intended recipients, but the spirits had found them binding. Gai Pan, Lin Jian, Xiao He… Those were the three he had written personally to on the campaign to Half Moon Bay. Perhaps even Senlin would be included as he gave the order to not occupy the town after the battle in the nearby forest.

His accounting of the dream-vision that wasn’t quite either of those things left his hand slightly cramped. And what he didn’t know was that many li away, in another room with just one candle to light a small table, another member of his order was also writing far after all had thought him asleep.

The general did his breathing exercises then, letting his clothing steam and dry, and followed it with his bedding, the futon drinking in the scent of his flame, which his son compared to the scent of dragon eye jasmine tea. A tear came to his eye, reminding him of the fact that Lu Ten had not approached him during his visit. Perhaps if he did a better job with these charges the spirits had told him of, he might be allowed to see Lu Ten again. He sighed, and hoped that the spirits were right, and his nephew had people watching out for him. He couldn’t stand to think about what might happen if that vision of Zuko did not come to pass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to comment; I'm pantsing this thing and knowing how people are feeling on this is a big help with figuring out where to go.
> 
> We'll be back again with Zuko soon. The next gambit is titled: "Lotus disharmonizes the chrysanthemum and rose" I hope you'll enjoy it once I get it done.


	4. Pai Sho Gambits - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are happening in Caldera's palace.  
> Plans are in motion as people scramble to adjust to a world without Zuko as crown prince.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh crud; so I didn't realize copy pasting from word deleted things like italics, so I'll have to go back through this thing at some point to re-add all the html stuff that didn't port over. whoops. here's hoping some of it is in this version now that I learned some tags. apologies for not actually getting to Zuko this time around.  
> The plot did not go exactly where I was expecting, so we get some other stuff in before we circle back around to him.

**Lotus disharmonizes the chrysanthemum and rose**

Her father had almost half the ministers sacked. She was fairly sure they were alive and on their way to their clan lands without trouble. The firelord could not execute the daimyo or their court appointed family representatives without a full trial including a convocation of the fire sages. It wasn’t like they all could have bedside assassinations by “earth kingdom fanatics.” Could he?

She strolled from the now cavernous banquet hall of the palace back toward the imperial residence. She had never seen it so empty before. But then, her grandfather had never effectively banished seventy five percent of the court. _Ever_.

It seemed other people in the palace were beginning to worry as well if she was getting correspondence. She unfurled the short scroll left on her bed, and as he read it a second time over to be sure of what it said, for the first time in weeks her expression broke from her usual court placidity into shock.

_To the new heir apparent to the fire throne, it is with a heavy heart this one must write to you to notify you that your brother -may Agni guide his soul gently to his next life - has not only been noted deceased in the annals of the family register, but has posthumously been denoted as banished and removed from the line of succession._

_This one notes that the banishment of the minister of the register was done before many of the other officers of your grandfather’s court when he refused the new firelord’s orders to do so. And it is with an even greater sorrow to note that the firelord had then written the edicts into the register with his own hand, thus making them permanent and binding as Agni’s representative on earth._

_The firelord, however, did not formally denote you as his heir, and requests for clarification from this office have been met with silence. We ask that you send word on how we should address these issues of paperwork._

The letter was not signed. Instead a small chop in the shape of a pai sho white lotus tile had been used where a signature should go.

_It is likely a trap, Azula thought to herself, but either I can go to father to expose it once I’ve heard this group out, or I can help them “clarify” my father’s intent if the trap isn’t for me._

She saw no downsides to this. She was her father’s daughter after all, and had his stellar example to go off of. Her mother had warned her that someone might replace her and Zuzu. Azula was _not_ about to let her father replace her as heir as well.

**The red dragon is sent for the lily**

A few rooms away, in Ozai’s personal suite, Vachir stood at attention staring at the man who had forced him to resign from his position as a yu yan archer. At least the new firelord kept things short. “You failed me once,” he said. “Here is your new target. Do not fail me again.” He nodded and took the paper from his lord. He bowed, turned and walked out the doors.

In the hallway, outside her room, Azula heard a small gasp. But she had her own issues to worry about and plot through, and decided to leave it to whatever poor fool her father had called for. This proved to be to her disadvantage, as the wanted portrait Vachir now held was for Ursa (last name and titles not listed, the archer noted.)

It seemed even his time with the rough rhinos was at an end. Though he couldn’t say he enjoyed it. Far be it for him to question the orders general Iroh had given to his unit. But burning down villages had never sat entirely right with him. The smells were bad enough; they had lost another member who resigned citing nightmares of what he had heard during that campaign, and Vachir had almost joined him. But outside the military, there weren’t many jobs for a deaf man, even if he wasn’t also a mute.

The order in front of him though… It looked like the time to put in his withdrawal from the unit, citing a direct order from their new firelord. He’d leave a nice little false trail to ember island and from there to the north where Iroh’s relatives in Byakko and Genbu might be willing to hide a no-longer-queen on the run.

Instead, he’d go south. Hira’a was beautiful this time of year, and the firelord never sent anyone there. He’d be safe. A few local tattoos would be more than enough to mask his yu yan marks. And most importantly, it was the last place the firelord would look for anyone. Not when he knew of the spirits damned forest that could seemingly eat people without leaving a trace. Anonymity was at its easiest when even his true trail lead to a place where things disappeared.


	5. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko has a spirit dream. It goes about as well as you'd think

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooof. so this one was written a while back, but I didn't get a chance to post it because I caught a bad case of the flu before I finished what was meant to be the second half of the chapter. So I hope y'all'll enjoy this for now while I try to get over the cough I still have to shake.
> 
> This story is going a lot slower than I hoped, but I guess keeping it to these smaller chapters will help me publish somewhat regularly.
> 
> As always, comments are appreciated. Thank you all again for bookmarking and subscribing and sticking out my inexistent posting schedule.

Zuko woke screaming. His father and sister’s soot covered arms chased him into the flicker of candlelight and the comfort of his mother’s embrace.

He shuddered, remembering the dream, gripping the sleeves of his yukata to prove that he wasn’t in the traditional scholar’s robes he wore at the funeral ceremony yesterday.

The dream didn’t start out terrifying, blurring as it did with his memories of what happened after the miners were found. As a child, Zuko hadn’t been asked to help with the washing of the bodies. He could only assume the dream would have been worse if he had.

It had been bad enough when his dream self had gone to the wood pyre, a bending flame cupped in his hands and saw not the men and women from the mines, but his father and sister in the plain white kimono all the dead wore.

His fire had flickered in his hand, but in the dream, something had watched over him and kept the fire from going out. He felt a hand on his arm, steadying the flame.

He nodded, knowing that what he was doing was right, and took the four steps forward needed to set the pyre. Something shifted in the dream, and the presence behind him hissed like a cat. Drops of blood dripped onto the pyre like rain as hand broke through the earth to grip his father and sister who shuddered and began to rise. Zuko screamed. His fire almost going out, but the hand on his arm kept him steady.

He stuttered his way through the short sutra of the divine flame, telling the souls how to reach agni’s embrace. The hands and raindrops seemed repulsed by the prayer, but some peeled off, floating towards the fire in his hand and then floated up towards the dream sun that shone on him.

Then a second hand touched his, and Zuko noticed it wore the court robes of a man of his great grandfather's court, embroidered with the comet pattern popular of the time, considered good luck because of the fire star’s greeting through the arrival of its messenger.

A man’s voice was in his ear, and said, “I invoke the name of the autumn lord to remind you of your place in the winds.” And Zuko, catching on, repeated after the voice, causing the rain to pause. “Remember you are tied to nothing and give up these bindings you hold to.”

As Zuko said the last of the words, the hovering water fell to the ground, the air clearing as a burst of wind washed away from him. The water then seemed to boil, mixing with the earth to form a bubbling mud pit that tried to claw his sister and father down, reaching towards him as well. 

“I call on Agni’s sister, great Tui, to intercede and call on her partner’s blessings.” Zuko felt a shudder through his bones, feeling the water in him respond to the words. “I remind the spirits of water in their lord and lady’s name that the blood debts have been balanced: witnessed by great Tui and reckoned by Agni and La. Go in peace to the greatest of waters, feel the pull that resides in you.”

The mud dried back into parched earth as the spirits dissipated, draining down, down and down so deep Zuko did not know could exist.

“I call upon Tudigong, great grandfather of all the earth’s kin, to give his trust to this statement.” Zuko felt his bones shiver, and the earth beneath him quake with the weight of the very earth’s regard. “I attest to the balancing of books between Agni and Oma-Shu. Let all know the debts are paid and let none see fit to unbalance their treaty.”

The hands sunk back into the earth. And Zuko heaved a sigh of relief before seeing the smirk on his father’s face. His father took and step forward, lifting his hand as if to hurl a flame at him, and Zuko flinched, his fire rising to protect him, forcing the firelord to take a step back.

“Can you free yourself of them both?” The voice on his right asked.

“But.. my little sister. Momma asked me to protect her,” Zuko said, tears forming in his eye, his flame growing only stronger with his emotion.

Then here are the words to say, the voice to his left said, “I give up my ties to this man. I refuse to be burdened with his karma. I renounce all bonds of blood with him. I am my mother’s child, and shall trace only the blood given to me through her. I renounce you and all that you would have me bear.”

As Zuko breathed out the last word, the sun and the fire in his hand seemed to grow brighter, and his father -no; the firelord - staggered back and was burned away, like mist in the morning sun.

His sister’s clothes shifted as well, from the tobes of the dead to that of a commoner. The spark of cunning was still in her eyes, but she looked rougher, her clothes hanging on her in a way that they never did at the palace.

“Can I help her?” He whispered to the air in front of him, afraid to turn to look at the people at either side of him.

“You already are,” the strong voice to his right said, the invisible hand on his wrist finally coming into view to pat him on the shoulder before he was gone.

“You are still family,” the voice on his left responded. “Fire, earth, and water agree that the ties of blood will always overcome difficulty.”

Zuko hesitated for a moment, but curiosity got the better of him. “And what about air?”

The voice chuckled, “air has always been more focused on those they meet, claiming kinship through the bonds forged in life rather than those assigned by birth. They find their families on the winds of their travels.”

Zuko nodded, thinking he was already doing much the same as them, finding an uncle in Saburo, and a kind of family with the caravan.

He got a hug in return. “You have more family than you think, young one.”

Then the presence was gone. And he was left in the sunlight of Agni. At peace with the land around him.

Then a wailing voice reached his. “My children! What has become of my children?!” Zuko was afraid to look behind him towards the sound of the voice. His locked limbs could move again and he ran, sprinting across the purified field, hoping it would protect him.

The screams and shrieks of the voice were louder. She? It? Had caught sight of him. In the way of dreams he knew that if he reached the place where Agni’s setting eye would touch the horizon, he’d be safe. And though his logical mind knew touching Agni was impossible, his dream self knew he only needed to leap over the boundary that separated him from the horizon line.

The wailing voice was almost to him, and he felt the wind as claw like hands tried to catch his shirt. He shoved off his forward leg and jumped, floating off of the ground to fly towards Agni’s eye.

Then he woke, still screaming. He did not realize he had been as he ran in the dream, but it seemed he had.

“Nightmare?” His mother asked.

He nodded.

“Don’t worry, all will be fine. Angi’s eye is just about to break the horizon, and return from his vigil of the spirit’s world to ours.”

He nodded again. A whisper in the back of his mind saying that Tui had pulled him into the spirit world for a vision, just as her brother Agni had helped him slide back into the living world with him.

He felt rested despite being up the night in the spirit vision, now that the panic was wearing off. He just hoped that like a normal dream, daylight would dull the fear he felt during it.

—————-

Morning could not come fast enough for Noriko. Perhaps she should not have let her son help with the memorial rituals.

She had felt so proud seeing Li in the old style of magistrate’s robes used by the scholars for the services. She had almost decided against it at the last moment, seeing her son pale as he looked at the still soot blackened face of the first memorial.

Noriko sighed, remembering how her heart swelled at the compassion in her son’s face as he looked at the woman who had been buried alive. No fear, no disgust, just the sorrow of seeing another’s life lost. She’d never seen that expression on her (ex-) husband’s face. Nor her daughter’s… even when Zuko was bawling because she had burned his pet turtle duck. Perhaps he was too sensitive for life as a scholar. She could already tell he would be perfect on the stage. He memorized his lines and actions so perfectly and with so little prep time before his debut.

Each of his actions, from ringing the handheld bell tree to call agni’s gaze to them, to his very steps as he deliberately walked forward to light the pyre for the deceased were all smooth and fluid and deliberate to the mou.

She had thought Li would come through it none the worse for wear, they all had. But he was a boy. And having to do those motions twenty times for all of the found bodies, and a twenty first for those still buried would take its toll on anyone.


	6. Balancing Acts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko, being the smart kid he is, finds a solution to his ghost problem, and makes more problems for the people he's left behind in the capitol.  
> Agni, of course, loves the inadvertent trolling and helps nudge his own little bit of doom and disaster portents in to make his priest's day start off just that much worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the new chapter of Salvage is out, and in celebration, I decided to post what I have written.
> 
> I caught the flu at the beginning of the month, and I'm still shaking the after effects, so sorry for slowness continuing.  
> Hope you all enjoy a bit of my personal interest, divination, I've hopefully made it an interesting scene even for those not as excited about it as I am.
> 
> Lots of vague omens start to happen when the big spirits get involved lol.

Zuko still had trouble sleeping at night, and it had been almost a week. He kept turning to look behind the caravan, or off into the woods, worried that he had felt the ghost’s eyes on him. He knew the stories of such spirits: women whose children died during birth or from a famine or some other disaster, desperately searching for a child to claim as their own from one of the living.

In the old days, people would give their children sneaky names like, “broken pot” or “tea saucer” to make a ghost think they weren’t worth stealing, then they’d get a true name once they were an adult, either changing the reading of the name to one more elegant or adding a character to make a new name. Zuko did not have that protection even as Li. His momma gave him the name Li, it had all her thoughts and love behind it. Sure, he had two names, but…

Oh. _Oh_ He had _two names._

Zuko… Li knew what he could do to keep that spirit away. He found a blank doll they were planning to sell in the village, and asked Saburo for it, paying for it with the money he’d been given for helping with the funerals. Then he painted in its eyes and mouth himself, cutting the doll’s hair and pulling it up into the top knot he used to wear. He kissed its lips to give it a little of his breath, and pulled out one of his own hairs to add to its top knot. That night at dinner he gave it three grains of rice from his meal, and then just before bed, Li wrote “Zuko” on the doll’s back before replacing its clothing and falling to sleep with it under his blanket.

Li woke up in the spirit world just as he had intended. The doll was in his hands and it was awake. “Thank you for being my little doll,” he whispered to it, remembering the words from one of his mother’s spirit stories. “I have a task for you my little doll: another wants you more than I. Can you go to her?” Li asked.

The little doll now named Zuko nodded. And in a tiny whispering voice said, “by my honor, I will find the one who needs me.”

Li set the doll down and it started to totter off. He heard the voice wailing for their child, but it didn’t scare him any more. Not now that Zuko was walking away from him. Soon the spirit snatched the doll up, and for a moment everything was good. The air seemed to warm as the doll embraced the ghost, and the spirit sighed contentedly, singing a lullaby to Zuko. The spirit began to fade, and floated up and away.

Li let out a sigh of relief, and then shivered as more wails rose from the forest. But little Zuko had no fear, and began to walk into the woods to find the next spirit in need of a hug.

Li quickly ran in the other direction, feeling the sun on him as he leaped up into Agni’s embrace.

————————-

Goko no Surikire, High Priest of Agni, woke with a start, the moon not quite out of the sky, and Agni still under the horizon.

The high priest turned to slide out of his bed and stagger into the main temple hall still in his nightclothes. Some things couldn’t wait. Hastily starting a flame with a puff of his breath and a quick punch aimed at the nearest braiser, he started on the divination. Something dragged him out of sleep, and as he gathered the yarrow stalks he needed for a formal reading.

Goko no Surikire picked up one of the sticks and placed it in front of him creating a T with the stick and his feet. Then he threw his gathered bundle, separating the dispersed rods into two piles. Then he took a rod from the right pile and and hooked it with his left pinky to hold it for the next step. Using his left hand and maneuvering it around the stalk held by his pinky and ring finger, he sorted the left pile into groups of four. As he shifted the remainder down, he gasped finding four rods unsorted. It was the most improbable outcome and he pulled four rods from the right stack to hold a total of nine rods in his hand. Placing the nine separately, he started again, gathering the two sorted piles into one before splitting them a second time. He pulled a remainder of three and whimpered, pulling four rods from the right pile, as he could begin to see what outcome might occur for the line. And he groaned as he again pulled four rods for the third count.

He drew a broken line on the scroll next to him, drawing an x in the empty space. An inauspicious start: old and changing yin to bring emphasis to that first line. Then Goko no Surikire tossed the lots again. He drew a more regular 5 then 4, but then again drew 8. And he hissed, marking down a second broken line, though luckily without emphasis.

He audibly wailed as he completed the first trigram, drawing again that improbable 9, 8, 8 of an old yin line. The reading only grew worse from there: the second trigram reverses the polarities of old yin and yang, and the 5, 4, 4 count of the next line gave him another old yin. Goko no Surikire was visibly sweating as he finished the trigrams, and the other priests who woke because of his exclamations were similarly distressed. All the lines of his reading were the broken forms of yin lines. And the signs of emphasis were ominous: already it was a reading devoid of Agni’s light, holding only the shadowed places of yin.

But the emphasized lines truly sent the fox-snake into the pig-hen house: “When there is hoarfrost underfoot, solid ice is not far off.” For those reading the hexagram from the beginning, it was already a bad omen, was it a sign of the war turning? Of new activity from the northern water tribe, or some great and hidden secret of the south? Ice was rare in the fire nation, but it did happen, accuring on the highest peaks of the volcanoes before melting in the spring, or even in the midst of winter if the volcanoes were active enough. Could it be a flood? A late snow lake ready to melt and rush down the mountains into the many calderas and river valleys unprepared for such an event?

Goko no Surikire thought it more than that. A frost caused by Agni turning his gaze away from them. Some taboo broken that would need much searching to be found and addressed before Agni left them to whatever retribution was owed. The high priest knew it was significant. The lay priests far outnumbered the trained clergy now, too many good men and women lost to the vengeance of angry ghosts and nature spirits.

The next line of emphasis was more obscure: “Hidden lines. One is able to remain persevering. If by chance you are in the service of a king, seek not works, but bring to completion.” What did they need to bring to fruition? What had been assigned to them that they needed to focus on above all else? The next line, “A tied-up sack. No blame, no praise.” already corroborated one reading of the line. They must keep their heads down, or lose them. But there was more there to be learned. It would take time, time Goko no Surikire did not have at the moment, to unravel the nuances.

But it was the last of the emphasized lines to truly put them all on edge: “Dragons fight in the meadow. Their blood is black and yellow.” Warring dragons was never a good sign, and an earthly dragon of yellow blood fighting against the authority of the midnight blue celestial dragons suggested coups, or a corrupt person taking a spot of authority from its rightful owner. On one hand, it could be that someone orchestrated a retirement the firelord chose to allow through. But of course, Ozai had an older brother who should have been in line for the throne if he hadn’t been on the battlefield when his father passed. Iroh was already called the Dragon of the West… and didn’t the pronouncement of the hexagram state to look for allies in the west?

A third scream sounded in the chamber, pulling Goko no Surikire from his thoughts as everyone turned to look for the source. Overflowing the memorial altar for the lost prince and queen were heavy black vines of knotweed. _I am too old for this_ , Goko no Surikire thought, looking at the signs of a spirit tale about to start. Black knotweed vines would overtake the name plaque of a _living_ royal only when they had been dragged into the spirit world by a malevolent spirit. After the already inauspicious divination, it could only spell panic if these revelations got out before they were ready.

The name plates had been left still in the place with the living members of the royal family, a full 108 day count was needed when assassinations did not leave a body on the off chance that they could divine the location of the royal… if the firelord allowed them to. Prince Zuko at the very least _had_ been alive before the spirits took him. It seemed there were other ploys at work. None he could discover with any chance of leaving reasonable denyability.

“Bar the doors to the temple.” Goko no Surikire said, his voice booming in the main hall despite the panicked whispers and shouts from his fellow priests. “We call together the sangha to discuss these omens. Send a messenger to crescent moon island; we will need their expertise in this matter. Until then, the readings are still in process of interpretation. Let no one say a word to not one of the priesthood till we come to a quorum.”

_That settled them down._

“If Ozai,” the High Priest said, pausing to let the intent of his words sink in, “asks what the reading is about, simply say it concerns his brother.”

“Yes, High Priest,” the room chorused. They had seen nobles “retiring to the countryside” already. It tended to happen at the beginning of every new reign. But usually, those “retiring” actually made it to the countryside. No one knew for sure if Ozai was behind the assassinations, and no one could currently find out as he tried to claim personal authority over every aspect of the government. They saw death sentences written out in the ink and yarrow, so they would do as the reading recommended: they shall, “maintain reserve, be it in solitude or in the turmoil of the world, for there too they can hide so well that no one will know them.”

—————————

Li woke the next morning without a doll in his arms, the cart rattling under him. The last remnants of the dream Agni let him witness clung to his eyelids. He slid out of bed and rummaged through his bag. He knew he’d seen the symbol before, in his lessons with Saburo from last week. But he couldn’t remember which it was. He flipped through the first few pages of the copy of the book of changes Saburo gave him and found it pretty quickly. It was the second hexagram in the list: the field or doubled earth hexagram.

Li skimmed over the interpretation of the character pausing when he read, “It is favorable to find friends in the west and south, to forego friends in the east and north. Quiet perseverance brings good fortune.” He already knew he had to leave behind the north, since that’s where Caldera was. But he wasn’t sure what it could mean by “friends in the east.” He had never been in that direction before, though they were heading southeast towards the ninth island, since that’s where the boat to Hira’a docked. Perhaps it meant there was someone untrustworthy he’d meet there. He thought he had a good idea of who his friends in the west were: he had met Saburo and Hanako both in the west of the island.

Today they finally arrived in the old capital. He was excited to have finally reached the city Saburo told him about. There was a friend of Saburo’s -another scholar- waiting for them there and Li would get to talk with them and eat tea dumplings. Saburo even promised to let him sit in on their pai sho game. He’d begged him momma for a week to be able to go with just Saburo, so she could go and look at the makeup and silks on the main road. It would be a good day.


	7. Tea and Pai Sho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter took forever. Mostly because I kept getting hungry for the stuff I was writing in, getting sad I couldn't eat it, and then not wanting to look at it again for ages for spiting me like that.  
> But it's now an acceptable draft. I hope it's not too all over the place from the long periods of down time.

The smell of steaming siu mai and char siu bao made Li tilt back his head to breathe in the wonderful steamy scents. The fluffy bread was usually sliced with an X on top so that the meat scents would come through. He took a deeper breath in and moaned, smelling the scent of baking bao as well. His eyes roved over the tea shop’s outer stall, and he saw meat buns that made him gasp. Char siu bao that looked the size of his head, golden glazed from time in a baking oven.

“You have a good eye kid,” the man at the stall said, “a new style out of Hira’a island. They’re this large so you can take em with you if you need something to eat fast. Though we also have some tea sized ones if you prefer a snack to take with you?”

Saburo laughed, “no need to talk us into it. I have a Pai sho game with a friend, and food for this one inside. Is Lady Faa in?”

The salesman laughed, “of course! Nothing keeps aunt Faa out of the shop except for a birth in the family. And since you’re practically a member, I should warn you that not letting her know about this little one is gonna cost you.”

Saburo coughed and sputtered, “Soeng! I wouldn’t dare forget to send word to your family if mine were to grow. No, he’s the child of a traveling companion. And speaking of Hira’a, that is their eventual goal.”

“That so? Then there’s a few other treats I can show you.”

Soeng lifted the lids on one of the baskets in front of him, blasting Li with a face full of steam that he enjoyed breathing in, picking up the scent of chicken-pork and taro. “It’s called Lau Lau. Chicken-Pork, butterfish, and taro root and leaf steamed and cooked together. It’s so good but takes forever to steam just right - you use a mellow heat, just enough to make vapor. Makes breathing in the steam a treat rather than a potential scalding. This batch got started early this morning but will only be ready when the lunch rush is heading out.”

His inner fire never seemed to mind the water vapor mixed in with the feel of the heat - which was different than what he’d been told should happen by the imperial fire instructor (but then Zuzu didn’t care for him much, and she was the quicker student, so he didn’t really think Mon Sensei was as much of an expert as he thought he was. He still didn’t think him getting sent to the colonies was right, but it seemed safer than staying in the capital now that he was able to hear the gossip of what was happening to everyone who was getting retired now.)

He felt so much more invigorated when near the steam of the kitchens or the palace baths. Now that he no longer lived in the palace. He and his momma had been able to talk more freely, and one of their new special secrets was what it meant to be beloved of steam. His momma told him his great grandmother had a similar affinity, able to even bend the sun warmed waters of Hira’a bay once she became master of her inner fire. “One loved by Agni and his great sister,” she called her, and _he might be one too_!

The secret added a bounce to his step as he and Saburo entered the tea house. Li’s drooled openly at the many steaming baskets on display and the sweets being stirred in pots. His gaze was immediately drawn to the brown sugar dough for the malai go. He could already smell one of the soft and fluffy cakes steaming in a basket. They were a rare delicacy even at the palace. He remembered the chef complaining that they never got the correct kind of starter or flour for it. But getting to taste the experiments he made with brown sugar mochi more than made up for it.

Saburo laughed seeing Li’s gaze focus in on the brown sugar cake. If there was one thing that could give away Li’s upbringing in the capitol, it was how unaware he was of the pricing of some goods. It was a good thing he and his friend could both afford the boy a treat or two with their lunch.

“Ah, your grandson has a discerning eye,” the propetieress said, startling Saburo into a small cough that made Li giggle. And the little oni didn’t even deny it, staring up at him with glittering eyes. _Li could make a good merchant,_ Saburo thought, _His acting skills are perfect for the kind of two pronged response a family team could make._ unfortunately for him, he knew he was on the receiving end of such an assault and had no defences against Li’s pigmy puma gaze.

“And yours are just as discerning, Lady Faa.” He said dryly in return, wondering just how much of his coin line would go into that one purchase for the table.

At the nearest pai sho table, where the earth kingdom styled chairs and high tables of the eatery gave way to the raised tatami flooring of the parlor, he heard his contact in the White Lotus laugh. “Then you should come here and I’ll get us a cake to share with our tea!” Minister Awai said to his back, forcing the old merchant to twist around.

“Oh, Awai,” Saburo said, “you’re here already? I thought the paperwork would have kept you in longer.”

“Not with these new policies it doesn’t,” Awai scoffed, “If the new emperor wishes to do my taxes himself, I wish him luck with it. My workload’s been cut by a third because of all the duties he’s decided a capital scholar should do instead. All I need to do is relay whatever terms they come up with, and it’ll likely take a year to receive my first order.”

Saburo wilted a little at that pronouncement, Li and the propetieress as well. They all knew that kind of centralization led to pronouncements of increased taxes, usually backed by an army. But hearing the blithe way Awai talked about it, he could see exactly what he thought increasing the size of the nation’s giant bureaucracy would do to the efficiency of the government. They’d have time to plan and adjust.

“Isn’t commander Lu Ten’s nameday coming up?” Li asked, breaking the silence “Won’t there be a mourning period anyway?”

Awai shook his head and Li deflated. Saburo thought that Li must have looked up to the first prince of the nation. What few reports they had received back from the front said that they couldn’t even find his body to be buried. At least they didn’t have news of him stung up on the broken walls of the city. There were old earth kingdom histories of victorious conquerors doing that to the nobles of captured cities… or it being done to them when they finally lost.

Li paled. His father had effectively cut out Uncle’s family from the line of succession. Any prince of the nation received a mourning period and the people got a relaxation on taxes and other war time rationing to better observe the civil duties tied up with the mourning.

“How will the prince tell Agni all our worries if we can’t have a festival for him?” a girl a little younger than Li asked Awai.

Awai made a hesitant smile and said, “Well, Lu Ten is a soldier; I’m sure he won’t mind travelling a bit more roughly than his grandfather did. We shall still do our best to give him a warm welcome here.”

The girl stared up at Awai for a few moments before nodding. “That makes sense,” she said, then smiled. “I’ll pick flowers for him and ask momma to make the jook I like. Pappa always complained that the army never made it quite right.”

Awai smiled kindly to her and saw her off and Li tried to figure out what jook was. Saburo grinned at him, “not something they do in the palace? It’s like okayu, but thicker with meats and vegetables.”

Li grimaced, he had no idea how adding meat and vegetables to the almost rice water and super mushy rice that was sick people's food okayu made it better.

“I’ll make it sometime in the next few weeks;” Saburo said with a chuckle, “it's a great way of finishing off leftovers when on the road. But now to our own snacks and tea I think.”

Zuko nodded excitedly at that promise, and the lady laughed as well as she shuffled back to the dim sum carts to bring them the promised cake along with many other small snacks to the pai sho table.

Awai sat first as he was oldest, with Li and Saburo sitting down on the table across from him. Li took the small personal plates and passed them out. The adults thanked him which made his mouth twist up in a shy smile as the lady placed steaming baskets on their table. Li licked his lips and focused on the cake’s basket picking up his chopsticks to drag it towards him. Then he hopped in his chair a little as three voices chorused at him, “eat some real food first!” He blushed and turned his focus towards the spinach with garlic to plop some on his plate, followed by a har gao. He liked the many times folded look of the crinkly dim sum, and had a fondness for the shrimp filling, though the smell coming from some of the other baskets were just as good. 

The three adults laughed as Awai took two of the small dipping sauce plates and added a mixture of mustard paste and shoyu to them. He stirred them and placed one besides Saburo’s plate before asking Li, “how spicy do you like your dipping sauce?”

“Very,” was the answer he got back and he chucked adding some chili flakes into it as well. Li drooled as the dish was placed near him and he dunked the har gao in, enjoying the burn of the chili flakes and oil as he bit into the soft wrapping and meat.

Lady Faa added more dimsum to his plate and Li crinkled his face up in displeasure, earning a not unkind pat to the back of his head from the woman. Li blushed but did as she bid, taking up his chopsticks to bite into the crunchy green chives and shrimp dim sum. It was heavenly.

Saburo and Awai chuckled as Li moaned his enjoyment, dropping a few pai sho pieces onto the board in between bites of their own sall plates. Li’s happy crunching making their own stomachs eager to try Lady Faa’s goods.

Li turned out most of their opening talk, too focused on his food as they went over old people things like his uncle did, quoting proverbs he never bothered to memorise, before they started saying interesting things. Saburo was chatting about trade movements and Awai nodded along, noting what he was seeing in the port logs and telling him about the troubles the city merchants came to him with.

Li was dazzled. Awai may have been a city’s mayor, but the way he talked about trade goods interested him in a way only Uncle’s talks on troop logistics could. Li slid half of a potsticker in his mouth, letting his tongue slide over the oil beaded surface of the smooth side as the bottom slid with small crunches against his upper teeth. One of the many perks of being a fire bender was that hot stuff didn’t bother him. Uncle did say he’d have to wait till he was older to learn how to _breathe <\i> fire without burning his mouth, but for now he’d never found a drink or food that could scald his tongue._

_Li’s ears perked up as they started talking in serious proverbs. Uncle used similar ones when his pai sho opponent had important news from the front to share, and he really hoped he’d be allowed to listen to it. Li smiled widely when Awai nodded to Saburo and lowered his voice._

_“So a hawk reached me yesterday. Lu Ten may have a bigger retinue than we’d expect for his procession.”_

_Li’s eyes widened as Saburo quite agreed with his young charge.“You can’t be saying what I think you’re saying.”_

_Awai smirked like a pigmy puma that got into the hen house. “We’ll be needing greens and browns on the offering table along with the golds and reds. As of today, Lu Ten is named the guardian of the outer wall of Ba Sing Se for protecting the city from malevolent spirits at the cost of his own life.”_

_That statement had Saburo flabbergasted and Li paling. “What kind of offering should we give him if the earth kingdom claimed him?” Li asked._

_Awai smirked. “We give him what we’re supposed to. The lesser sages I know in the colonies and on the blockade all say he recognises them as boundaries he is to guard. I’m sure the colonial cities will figure out the best practices for him in time. It’s not since before the passing of Avatar Roku that any person has joined the Spirits in such a way.”_

_Li’s eyes were saucer wide in awe. Despite the talk, the sounds of the pai sho parlor and the eatery were loud enough to keep their technically blasphemous conversation out of all ears but their own. Li wondered if Saburo was actually a ninja or something. All the old play scrolls he read talked about them dressing as merchants or messengers to spy. (Though his favorite involved masks and night time espionage where the ninjas wore the full black style written about in later plays)_

_Saburo’s mouth opened and closed a few times. Trying to compose his thoughts. “The spirits have recognized the colonies?”_

_Awai nodded. “As far as we can tell, it was a reward for preventing Ba Sing Se from collapsing. It is said to be the merciful Kannon’s heart in our world. And earth spirits enjoy their connection to gravity too much to enjoy it faltering for even a moment.”_

_Li gasped. “You mean the night everything in the palace got floaty was because the spirits turned gravity off?”_

_Awai paled a little and asked, “you were in the palace?”_

_Li nodded. “My mom and I lived there. I helped her out in the kitchens sometimes. I was carrying a plate of sesame balls in the mendicants hallway on my way to the library when the top balls in the stack started to float. Then the ones underneath started, and then the plate too. I was so surprised I never even noticed my feet weren’t touching the ground till I could kick them and not touch anything with my toes. It lasted maybe half a minute till everything came crashing down. It took the maids a full day to clean up all the broken stuff in the west wing.”_

_“The _west <\i> wing?” Iwai asked.__

__Li nodded. “Lady Ursa said that it was a good thing that only she and Prince Zuko would have been around to see it. Princess Azula and… Firelord Ozai weren’t back till the next day. They had been training together and had to be fetched by hawk to hear Prince Iroh’s message.”_ _

__Iwai and Saburo shared a look. “I told you it was a good idea to let him come,” Saburo said._ _

__Iwai nodded and turned to Li. “Don’t tell anyone else what you know about that night and what came after. Something manage to hide that from the memories of our troops and who knows who else. The only reason I and the flotilla sages know is because the messages were being written and sent as things were happening. What reports I have make it seem like a night parade happened inside the city and the inner wall had not been breached.”_ _

__“A night parade?!” Saburo said, “but the imperial family…”_ _

__“Is dead except for the youngest son.” Iwai said grimly. “The city still hangs by a thread with their divine family pruned to a single branch. Don’t forget to eat your food, Li. Hot dim sum is a treat; cold dim sum merely fills the stomach.”_ _

__Li jolted and picked up his chopsticks to eat more. The siu mai, despite the pretty shrimp curled atop the open half, tasted almost bland after that discussion. The spirits letting the word spin out of control was now a real concern to him. Who knows what might have happened if his cousin hadn’t…_ _

__Iwai saw the tears forming in Li’s eyes and after double checking that Saburo would need no more of the Ba Sing Se intelligence began steering the conversation back to lighter topics. Updating call signs had Li grumbling about “old man proverbs” while them bullying him into a game had some interesting results._ _

__As they got started with Li going first, Iwai murmured, “I see you favor the white lotus gambit. Not many still cling to the ancient ways.”_ _

__Li’s shoulders bunched together. “What? Uncle just started teaching me Pai Sho. You can start with other tiles? All the moves he’s been teaching me start with the lotus.”_ _

__Iwai chuckled. “It’s a good strategy. And I’m sure your uncle would teach you more once you got these openings down. I’m sure Saburo will be more than happy to teach you the other gambits once you know how the lotus moves.”_ _

__Li looked to Iwai for a moment, considering that, and then said, “OK.” He tilted his head back down to the board as Iwai made his own move._ _

__Li started smiling more as they had more games. Cheering both “Gramps” and “Uncle Iwai.”_ _

__“Why do I have to be Gramps?” Saburo griped with a smirk on his face while placing a tile that won him their game of Pai Sho._ _

__“Since you’re clearly part of the family, unlike me.” Iwai teased back as Lady Faa brought a steaming plate of Ma Lai Go to their table, placing it right on top of the cleared Pai Sho board._ _

__“Last call for more dim sum boys,” she said with a wink._ _

__Two hands reached out to grab the cake plate as Li gripped it with both hands. “That’s far too much sugar for you Li, your mother would kill me if I let you eat it,” Saburo said with a chuckle._ _

__“And to not let your host cut the cake would be a little rude too,” Iwai said with a chuckle. With a short inhale, he then gathered his two smaller fingers on his palm pressing them to it with his thumb, leaving his longer fingers straight in the kapithaka mudra. A short breath out with a quick cut of his hand made the smallest blade of fire Li had ever seen. Li’s eyes bugged out as the flame fizzed right through the hot cake, before Iwai turned the plate twice more, slicing the cake into thirds with no signs of charring on the cake or the plate. When Li picked up his third with his chopsticks, the sliced bits were firm and a little crunchy, but that only made the cake taste better._ _

__“How’d you do that?” He asked as soon as he swallowed his first bite._ _

__“Long years of studying control of my inner flame,” Iwai said with a wink. “I’m sure I can give you a lesson or two before you continue on your way south.”_ _

__“I’d really enjoy that!” Li said, face full of cake and unable to stop himself. Far too excited at the idea. Both older men and Lady Faa smiled at that. They managed to find something that could break through his palace etiquette to the kid inside…_ _

__And of course it would be promising him lessons._ _


End file.
